Atreyu Members on Reunion: ‘We Had an Urge To Make More Music’

The recent news that metalcore veterans Atreyu would be reuniting sent a shockwave of delight through the rock community and beyond. Formed in the late '90s in Orange County, Calif., the band released five studio albums before taking an official hiatus four years ago.

At the recent Rocstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival kickoff in San Bernardino, Calif., where the band was in attendance but not performing, Loudwire had the chance to sit down with band members Brandon Saller (drums) and Dan Jacobs (guitar) to talk about the news and what it all means. Currently, Atreyu are set to play this coming September at the Aftershock Festival in Sacramento and the recently announced Knotfest in San Bernardino the following month.

Check out our interview with Brandon and Dan to get the story behind the band's reunion and future plans.

Take us inside the bubble and let us know how the reunion came together.

Brandon: Discussions probably began about eight months ago. We all had dinner one night in Huntington Beach and figured out that we had an urge to make more music. It was that simple. We talked about some options and things grew really fast.

Dan: I think it's clear that we have some unfinished business. When we went on hiatus four years ago, we didn't know if we would be back.

Brandon: Back then, we all decided it was kind of pointless to be in a band if we weren't all going to be 110 percent. When you're in a band, that's just how it has to be. I hate to see a band up there that is starting to phone it in. I feel ripped off. We didn't want to get to that point but we knew that possibly we were heading down that road.

Dan: When you're in a band as long as we had been, it's interesting because we started his teenagers. You go through those years together living in Never Never Land and you never really grow up. We just got to a point where we wanted to see what we are made of outside of being in a band. We wanted to establish ourselves be individuals and now we can go back a little bit older and wiser and get back to business.

Has the huge reaction to your news caught you off guard?

Brandon: Absolutely. We had no idea what the reaction would be so we didn't want to think about it too much. We just wanted to get together and start kicking around some music. But then it hit us like a tidal wave. The reaction has been insane. On the one hand we never really knew what people thought of us but then again we look at our Facebook page which had about 500,000 likes right before the hiatus. We haven't done anything in a few years and yet now I think it's over about a million and a half. I never really looked at that before but when you think about it, I guess people do really care about this band.

What will you be doing between now and the first show in Sacramento this September?

Dan: We'll be practicing a lot in getting show-ready. We haven't played Atreyu shows for a long time and it's much more physical than anything else we've been involved in since then. You really have to prepare and be in shape to do our shows and we want these shows to be really special.

Brandon: We don’t want to dive in too fast. Right now were knocking the dust off over the summer and doing things on our own terms. We don’t have a huge schedule yet or even a record label, we are just making music for the fun of it like we did when we started off. We kind of feel like teenagers again which is really nice.

Do you think you might be doing anything special? Perhaps something in conjunction with the 10th anniversary of ‘The Curse’?

Brandon: We’re starting to think about little things we might do but those won't be a focal point. If we do anything at all like that it'll just be a piece of the puzzle. We’re not looking to promote anniversaries or anything just yet, this is a fresh start for us and we really just want to have fun and pick up where we left off before making any concrete plans. We don’t even have a label yet, but I'm guessing that's going to change pretty soon. Because we do want to make new music. And so we will.

Our thanks to Dan and Brandon of Atreyu for taking the time to speak with us. Look out for the return of Atreyu this fall at Aftershock and Knotfest.